


How They Shine So Bright

by GingerAle3



Series: AroAceing the Line [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: AroAceing the Line 2021, Aromantic Sasha Racket, Asexual Sasha Racket, Canonical Character Death (mentioned), Character Study, Gen, Internalized Acephobia, liking stars is ace culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29631357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerAle3/pseuds/GingerAle3
Summary: "Sasha never really understood what stars were when she was a kid. She heard people describe them, the swirls of glowing specks across an endless sea of black, and didn’t entirely understand the appeal. They made pretty patterns? Okay, so did the cracks in the ceiling above her bed, and no-one was going on and on about those. Like so many other things in her life, like trusting people and fresh seafood and valuing her own life, they were a concept she couldn’t understand the appeal of until she had her own experience with them."
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Everyone
Series: AroAceing the Line [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177172
Kudos: 18
Collections: AroAceing the Line





	How They Shine So Bright

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AroAceing the Line event on tumblr.  
> (@aroaceingtheline)
> 
> 22/2 - Monday  
> Doubt / Stars
> 
> Not sure whether I'll be able to handle the writing for the whole week, but here's day 1 at least! Anyways, I have a lot of emotions about Sasha.
> 
> (Title from Standing By by Pentatonix)

Sasha never really understood what stars were when she was a kid. She heard people describe them, the swirls of glowing specks across an endless sea of black, and didn’t entirely understand the appeal. They made pretty patterns? Okay, so did the cracks in the ceiling above her bed, and no-one was going on and on about those. Like so many other things in her life, like trusting people and fresh seafood and valuing her own life, they were a concept she couldn’t understand the appeal of until she had her own experience with them. Even as she grew old in a place and time entirely removed from what she had once called “home”, she would always remember her first view of the stars.

Eldarion’s training was confusing and difficult and frustrating, and not even in all the ways that she was used to. It seemed sometimes that she was going out of her way to counter everything that Sasha had ever been taught, and then punishing her when things didn’t come naturally. Sasha had always been told that practicality was all that mattered when it came to clothing and equipment, but now she was meant to understand fashion and social expectations? She’d also always been taught - either directly or through experience - to stay out of sight, stick to the shadows, be silent. Now Eldarion wanted to dress her up in lace and frills and parade her in front of countless pairs of eyes, silently taking her in, taking her apart, finding all the ways she was lacking-

Needless to say, the day’s lessons hadn’t gone well.

That evening, Sasha had laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling, far too far above her, completely devoid of cracks, and realised she had to get away from the perfectly perfumed cleanliness of it all. After the childhood she’d had, sneaking out of bed and climbing out of the window and up to the rooftop was almost too easy. Still, it was better than laying in bed surrounded by soft silks and the cloying smell of lavender.

Sitting on the rooftop, knees pulled up to her chest and back pressed to a slightly smoking chimney to try and stave off the chill, Sasha finally felt like she understood what people meant when they said that they needed some air. It was bitingly cold as it dragged against her throat with every breath, but cleared her head of the spiralling thoughts. Eventually, she relaxed a little, her head tipping backwards to rest against the chimney. She opened her eyes, and that was when she saw them.

Miles above her, impossibly high and impossibly bright, were the stars. The descriptions really hadn’t done them justice, the play of light and darkness, the constellations, the slight glow of the milky way high above.

Sasha had ended up falling asleep there, waking up to sunlight on her face and the sounds of Eldarion tearing the house apart. She slipped back through the window, bracing herself for the inevitable scolding, but still couldn’t quite bring herself to regret it. Her head was clear for what felt like the first time in years, and as she withstood Eldarion’s harsh words later that day, she just closed her eyes and pictured the stars.

-

After that, Sasha learned to turn to the stars in times of doubt and worry. So many times she sat under that familiar night sky and worked to find that same sense of peace she needed to move forward. The roof of a fancy hotel in Paris, flanked by gargoyles. Trying to squint through the constant dust cloud around Cairo as she came to terms with the fact that she was changing into something terrible. Sat in the middle of a destroyed factory compound, playing cards with someone who she would eventually die saving her.

And then the first night in Rome.

After hours of walking through the underground, she and Cicero had finally been forced back to the surface. They found themselves beyond even the outskirts of the city, but the air still echoed with the distant sounds of screaming and chaos. Cicero was exhausted though, and though she was barely processing it, so was Sasha. Eventually they came to a seemingly long-abandoned barn, the roof slightly caved in and the grass around it overgrown. Sasha offered to take first watch and Cicero barely had the time to agree before passing out in a graceless heap in the far corner. Finally, everything aching, body and soul, she clambered up to the roof. Or what was left of it at least.

Sitting on the edge of the barn, she looked to the stars and choked back a sob. They were barely recognisable, swirling in patterns and shapes completely unfamiliar to her. Everything, everyone she cared about, who even knew she existed, was either gone or separated from her by the space of over a thousand years. For the first time in her life, Sasha was completely adrift in the world, no-one there trying to pull her in one direction or another. For better or for worse, she was responsible for whatever happened next, and wasn’t that a terrifying thought?

She’d wondered before if she was broken. If everything with Barret had ruined her on such a deep, fundamental level that she could never keep anyone in her life. She’d started to question it in her teens, when her peers and even Brock had started to talk about whoever their latest crush was, or who’d been caught making out with who behind the market stalls. With Sasha though, it wasn’t even that she didn’t care about any of that, she just couldn’t understand it. The thought of all of it, the kissing, the holding hands, the romance and...everything else that came with it, it all made her feel ill and uncomfortable. Any time someone approached her with that in mind, she found herself running from it, sometimes even literally. She’d heard the whispers that always followed her after one of those moments. “What’s wrong with her?” “What’s her problem?” “What, does she think she’s too good for any of us?” She’d tried to write off such worries, she wasn’t broken, nothing was wrong with her, but then Brock had disappeared.

From there, it seemed like nothing she did could keep people in her life. Without Brock sticking up for her, she quickly lost the few “friends” she had left. Then she joined the London Rangers We’re Still Working On The Name just to try and get away from other people from her past. Then Brutor ran away. Then Zolf left. Then Bertie died (no great personal loss, but still another person gone from her life). Then Bi Ming had been taken and just this once, she wasn’t just going to let someone go. She was going to fight to keep him in her life. And in the process of trying to keep him, she lost everyone she had left.

So now she was sat on the roof of a half-destroyed barn, functionally alone, over a thousand years before she was meant to be born and being looked down at by stars that didn’t even have the decency to look the same as they used to. If she wasn’t broken before, she was fairly certain that she was now.

Sasha’s spiralling thoughts were shattered by the feeling of cold metal against the back of her neck. She’d got so caught up in her own head that she hadn’t even kept watch properly. Wonderful. What a fitting ending. She just hoped that they didn’t find Cicero downstairs, he didn’t deserve to suffer for putting his faith in the wrong person.

“W-who’re you?” The voice was shaky and high-pitched, and came from much further down than she’d expected. A literal child had snuck up on her. She answered without really thinking about it.

“Who’s askin’?” Judging by the silence, they seemed confused, so she tried to play it off. “Whosaskinus. Sorry, nickname y’know?” The metal pressed against her neck a little more firmly and she could suddenly feel that it was trembling in the child’s grip.

“...are you a Roman? A cultist? A...a dragon?”

“Not exactly? Just, uh...passing through.” The metal slowly moved away from the back of her neck, and she took the risk to turn around. Her chest hurt a little as she took in the scene. The boy in front of her couldn’t be more than four or five, and was in a terrible state. Clothed in rags, covered in scrapes and bruises, and practically skin and bones. The weapon he’d been threatening her with wasn’t even a proper dagger, it looked like it used to be a sword before the blade had been broken, leaving a jagged piece of metal attached to a rather unwieldy hilt. The boy shuffled awkwardly , holding the hilt in both hands.

“Sorry. Thought you were bad.” She knew that hunted look, had seen it in the mirror more than enough times. It didn’t look right on the face of a kid.

“Don’t worry about it. You travelling alone?” Nervously, the boy nodded. “Want to come with me and my friend? Not sure where we’re going, but, you know. Safety in numbers.” He looked surprised at Sasha’s offer, and then a little suspicious.

“What’s the catch?” The hunted look was back, and he was tense, clearly ready to run. Sasha’s mind raced for an excuse.

“The catch is you have to help me keep watch. I’m clearly not very good at it, or maybe you’re just really good at being sneaky.” His chest puffed out a little at the compliment, and his shoulders relaxed again.

“...yeah. Yeah, alright, I’ll help you.” He sits down next to Sasha on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the edge like her’s. She hid a smile behind her hand and made a show of being relieved to have his help. After sitting in silence for a while though, she realised she’d forgotten something important.

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t catch your name.” The boy tensed up and looked away.

“...don’t have one.” There was a story there, and she got the feeling that she was going to be hunting someone down if they had somehow survived Rome. For now though…

“Do you want one?” He looked surprised.

“What, you can just...give me one?”

“If you want.” The surprise shifted to excitement, and a fragile kind of hope as he nodded enthusiastically.

“How about…” She blurted the first name that came to mind. “Grizzop?”

“G-Guhrizz’p?” Right, Romans couldn’t pronounce that for some reason.

“Riz, for short.” His face lit up.

“Riz, Riz...yeah! Riz. I’m Riz!” He looked up at her, and the smile on his face was as bright as the sunrise.

-

That had been years ago, and Sasha hadn’t got any younger since. Her hair was speckled with grey instead of just the unnatural white patch at the back of her head, and her limp was hardly the only ache she had to deal with on a regular basis these days. With age came wisdom though, and with a fond smile for both her younger self and her first meeting with her eldest child, she put the hilt of the broken sword carefully back in the desk drawer, trying to return her focus to the letter on her desk. She was still far from perfect of course. People would never be her strong suit, and even now she was too quick on the draw with a dagger, but she’d come a long way from believing that she was broken.

Yes, there was something different about her. She’d never taken a romantic partner, though Cicero had filled any sort of gap that she might have felt in that regard. Romance was never on the cards between them, but after everything they went through in Rome they had stuck together and never really drifted apart. Her bond with him reminded her a lot of her friendship with Brock sometimes, in a way that always ached a little, but she welcomed the pain. It served as a reminder of the good things that had always been in her life, not just the sorrow of losing them. The same was true of her children’s names, they still sometimes set off that welcome ache in her chest as she remembered Hamid’s openness, or Azu’s kindness, Grizzop’s sharp-toothed grin and Zolf’s quiet strength and even Wilde’s jokes.

Sasha had led a hard life. It had left its mark on every inch of her in burn marks and white hair and the giant falcon shape on her back. Ultimately though, it had been worth it to have a chance at the life she had eventually settled into, and the bickering little family she had gathered around herself. Speaking of which…

“Boss! We’re back!” Riz walked in, and the twenty years that had passed showed even more clearly on him than her. After his growth spurts were over with, he’d filled out a decent amount, leaving him tall and whip-like, confidence showing clearly in the set of his shoulders. After their first mission, he’d been made the leader for all subsequent missions, and had settled into his new responsibility admirably. He gave her a strange look.

“Everything okay boss? You’ve got a weird look on your face.” Sasha shook her head with a smile.

“Just caught up in memories is all. Alright, I want a full debrief but I could do with some fresh air. Step outside with me?” And so the two of them stepped out onto the balcony and into the sunlight, leaving the mostly finished letter on the desk behind them. Most of it remained in the shade, but the sun through the door shone on the very last line, showing only the signature.

Whosaskinus “Sasha” Lolomg.


End file.
